Annoying Orange is making a lot more money than you think, by the way
It’s no secret that, in the past 8 years, I’ve spent an awful lot of time on YouTube. I was there for the advent of Brookers (first YouTuber with a TV deal!), I remember when LisaNova was doing movie parodies with her boyfriend (before Disney bought their Maker Studios for a zillion dollars) – heck, I remember when Shay Carl only had 3 kids! And let’s not forget the drama that ensued when the world found out that lonelygirl15 was actually an actress.
I also remember how everyone thought it was some sort of dumb site for teenagers, then realized that maybe it was sort of interesting but that the huge amounts of data required to store and serve all kinds of videos was going to prevent it ever being monetized. I remember when the early YouTubers started complaining about how people like MiaRose were ‘exploiting’ the site for ‘commercial’ purposes…
Well, YouTube’s a very different place these days. The old guard – Smosh, MysteryGuitarMan, iJustine – are monetizing like crazy, the new guard – PewDiePie, Anthony Quintal, Jenna Marbles – never had any scruples about monetizing, and YouTube keeps asking me if I want to become a YouTube Partner so I can make money from the 34 views I get for videos I post of my daughter.
However, you may not realize just how much money YouTube is making, both for itself and for its content creators (that would be people like Shay Carl, Jenna Marbles – and me – who post original videos). The pre-roll video market is booming, and even with the ‘skip this ad after 5 seconds’, YouTube is still managing to get more high-quality, verified eyeballs than most video ad serving channels.
But don’t take my word for it. Here’s an infographic that might make you wish you bought that digital video camera 10 years ago.
